REFLECTION

Since this is my first time Blogging. I do enjoy the moment of blogging; as this web blog assignment will start motivate me to create my own blog to share with others. For the first time using blog, it not really hard to learn. As blog spot do provide us template and guide for us which enable us create our blog easily. I did learn something new in this web blog assignment, how to use the tools provide by blogspot.com. For example we can link one to other post by using the gadget tools

Trusting Wikipedia

Image of Wikipedia

Do you trust or you don't ?

Wikipedia is not credible site to obtain information, but still there are few of other still relies on this free, multilingual encyclopedia. It is funded by a non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikiepedia’s had more than 10 million article over which have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the globe. The source is easy edited by anyone as long as they visit the site. Launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, it is currently the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet. Critics of Wikipedia target its systemic bias and inconsistencies and its policy of favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process. Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy are also an issue.

Other criticisms are centered on its susceptibility to vandalism and the addition of spurious or unverified information. Scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived. In addition to being an encyclopedic reference, Wikipedia has received major media attention as an online source of breaking news as it is constantly updated

Wikipedia, Wikipedia the free encyclopedia [online, accessed 12 November 2008]
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

Hindu Right Action Force (Hindraft)

Banning movemment of Hindu Right Action Force (HINDRAFT)

Hindu Right Action Force (Hindraft) submitted its application for registration since October 2007, when the Home Affairs Minister Syed Hamir Albar decided to ban their movement on October 15. The reasons given by the government, the decision is a setback to freedom of expression and will only send the signal that dissent is not tolerated. Therefore, resulting Hindraf supporters organised several gathering to protest the Internal Security Act of the detention of their five leaders for two years in Kamunting. Thus, banning the movement will not be the best solution as the best way for the government is to engage the group and work towards a more open and a better solution.


The latest gathering was at 27 September and it gathered more than two thousand people as it also dedicated to the blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin. “The Right to Associate and expression is guaranteed under Article 10 of Federal Constitution, albeit with restrictions through amendments passed over the years” (Venkiteswaran, 2008). Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) believes that the issues highlighted by Hindraf were valid and actual socioeconomic and political problems that were facing by a momentous figure of people of Indians in Malaysia.

This video was reported by Aljazeera, it is the second demonstration by the Human Rights Action Force (Hindraft) for the demanding greater representation for the country’s ethnic Indian minority. They gather up to complain about the economic discrimination and political marginalization. During the protest, one of the Hindraft leader, R.S Tanethran said, “To the Prime Minister, don’t ever come to the public and said that you love everybody and care for the people, it’s a wrong. Don’t ever say he doesn’t know how to respect the Indian in Malaysia.” In the statement to Aljazeera, Malaysia Deputy Internal Security Minister said, “If they are unhappy with anything, they should use the ballot box. The elections are around the corner and they are free to vote as they wish. This is democracy.” (Youtube.com, 2008)

My Opinion!

This is one of the many reason why the Barisan Nasional’s(National Front) limited success in the March 8 elections as the government failed to react to the issues. The public will against the government if they do not pay some respect to their people.



Reference

Ethnic Indians protest in Malaysia Youtube - viewed 13 November 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk4MwT92rLE

Venkiteswaran, G 2008, ‘Another ban, Another Loss For Expression’, Centre For Independent Journalism, viewed on 9 November 2008.

http://www.cijmalaysia.org/content/view/385/8/

Emoticons & Email Etiquette

Today, many people all around the world text or email more than a millions email per second. The truth is, they do not have any idea how to write, and therefore misunderstanding occurs between the sender and receiver. Because of this issue, it leads to the birth of creation of emoticons

Introduction:

It all started back in the State, when Professor Scott Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University invented the original emoticon which is made up with typing a colon. Still, there are experts against the use of emoticon, whereby, Greenstone (2003) think it as silly and unprofessional.

(Original emoticon)




(Latest emoticon)

Email Etiquette:

According to (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006), a Picture or symbol can represent all the text of meaning. Email etiquette is divided into two, formality the way we address a person in the email, and the occasion (it should not be used to express feelings, especially in sending out an apology or greeting).

Good Email Etiquette:

• Not writing in CAPITALS
• Avoid using urgent and important
• Not forwarding virus hoaxes and chain letters
• Be concise to the point
• Keeping your language gender neutral

Bacn- “email you wan but not right now”. It differs from spam as recipient has somehow signed up to accept it

My Opinion:

What I think is, emoticon had bring joy to the society as all the emoticon got different type of face, such as winky, happy, cute or adorable and etc...


Reference

Greenstone, Bn.d, ‘Email Etiquette’, viewed on 13 November 2008,

www.mainelearns.org/ovc/story_files/email_etiquette.pdf

‘Emoticon and email etiquette’, ABC.Net.Au, viewed on 13 November 2008,

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm

Schirato, T & Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, Allen & Unwin, NSW, pp.90-117

Indonesian Weekly apologises over Last Supper Suharto Cover

A leading Indonesian magazine has apologised to Christians for depicting former President Suharto and his family of mimicking the Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper portrait in the magazine cover. Christian activists visited Tempo’s cover showed a sketch of Suharto, who died at 86 month, sitting at a table surrounded by his children in a parody of the last meal Jesus had with his disciples as depicted in Da Vinci’s painting.

Christian activists visited Tempo’s building, to protest on the cover of the Suharto. They were offended as the Tempo magazine compared it between Suharto to Jesus.

"For anything unseemly related to the publication of the cover, I, on behalf of the Tempo group, apologise," the magazine's chief editor, Toriq Hadad, said in a statement run on its Web site, www.tempointeraktif.com. (www.abc.net.au). Later, He said the image, used to illustrate a cover story titled "After He is Gone," was inspired by Da Vinci's painting and was not intended to refer to a biblical event.

(The Last Supper Suharto Cover)

(Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, The Last Supper)

WHY?

The intent to portray Suharto as Jesus Christ was, because Suharto had brought economic stability to Indonesia during his administration. But, this did not go well with the Christians. It led to a dozen representatives of several Christian groups as well as inter-religious organizations converged. Therefore, the Christians protest outside the Tempo building for an answer.

According to Haynes (Michael, 2007) what exactly is considered blasphemy can vary between religious groups and people.

The picture created issues due to cultural differences. This is due to the misunderstanding of links between the composition of Leonardo’s painting, and the concept or context of the event told in the holy bible.

It was not ethical at all to post such a picture as the cultural difference is not respected. Also, “The exploitation of religious themes or persons for the selling of products. Surperficiality and bad taste entertainment and the internationalization of ‘values of the secularized society’ are equally, negatively judged.”(Feijter, p. 159, 2008)

My Opinion!

Why Tempo choose the potrait of the Jesus Christ Last supper. In my personal opinion, I think it was so some of free advertisement, to know that what had the Suharto done, and who is Suharto actually.

References

Feijter, 1.2008, ‘The Art of Dialogue: Religion, Communication and Global Media Culture.’

Viewed 13 November 2008.

Michael.M 2007, ‘Freedom of Religion Confronts Journalism’, Viewed 13 November 2008

Michael.M 2007, ‘Freedom of Religion Confronts Journalism’, Viewed 13 November 2008

<http://media.www.bcheights.com/media/storage/paper144/news/2007/03/26/News/Freedom.Of.Religion.Confronts.Journalism-2791570-page2.shtml

‘Indonesian weekly apologises over Last Supper Suharto cover’ 2008, ABC.net, viewed on 11 November 2008,

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/06/2156269.html

Trend

WEB VS PRINT

Which do you prefer, Print design or Web design? Let go deeper into the discussion. In print, a reader reads from left to tight or right to left considering their cultural background. That is, ‘reading is linear …’ (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006, p.178). While in web, reader does not read linearly but in an F-pattern. A reader usually reads ‘in a horizontal movement … Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement … Finally, users scan the content's left side in a vertical movement.’ (Nielsen 2006).

(Picture (a) Homepage of www.guinnessworldrecords.com)




(Picture (b) Guinness World Record Handbook)

Both pictures shown above are the Guinness World Record. Picture (a) is the layout of the Guinness World Record website. There are different kinds of languages provided and the word is easy to understand and attractive colourful picture.The language used in web page is simpler and straight forward as it is aim for readers to scan through and is able to get the message (Walsh, 2006). In web design, links to other articles are also included, something which cannot be done in print, in additional, video and sound were provided in web design to make it seem to be much more attractive. The electronic form publications are designed with technological differences such as hyperlinks, menu buttons, frames and windows to assist and attract the readers (Walsh, 2006).

Picture (b) the first attack from the Guinness World Record handbook is the picture in the middle which is clear and there word above and below the picture is in capital form as to attract the attention of the readers. Salience can create a hierarchy of importance among the elements, selecting some as more important and more worthy of attention than others. (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). The picture has to be big and colourful. Walsh said that responses in an audience are usually achieved by the choices of color, size, angle and so on. She called this ‘visual grammar.’ (Walsh 2006).

References

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London.

Nielsen, J 2006, F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content, Useit.com, viewed 13 November 2008, < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html>.

Walsh, M 2006, ‘“textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.

Phenomenon ll

Classification of blogs

Blogs do not take in one encoded form as blogs are like many other in the World Wide Web as they are quite complicated. According to Wikipedia.org (2008), there are different types of blogs:

1. Personal blogs
2. Corporate blogs
3. Question blogging
4. By Media type
5. By Device
6. By Genre
   

Australian media Analyst Magaret Simon had classified the type of blogs in the transcript interview with ABC.Net.Au (2008). These are the 9 types of list she classified as blog:

1. Pamphleteering blog
2. Digest blog
3. Advocacy blog
4. Popular Mechanics blog
5. Exhibition blog
6. Gatewatcher blog
   
7. Diary blog
8. Advertisement blog
   
9. News blog

In my opinion, I will prefer more to Wikipedia.org(2008) as in the way how they classified their blogs because they not only show the term of content but they do defined the content and make it more understanding. Compare to Simon classification, is more to Australian context which is more difficult for me to understand.

This is how Technorati .com(2008) classified their blog. Based on the site of Technorati.com (2008), they divided their site into six major categories of blogs, they are:

1. Blogs pertaining to entertainment
2. Business
3. Technology
   
4. Politics
5. Lifestyle
6. Sport

The six major categories were made up with more than 40 sub-categories, for example, there are 6 sub-categories under the entertainment category:

1. Celebrity and Gossip
2. Gaming
   
3. Movies and Film
4. Music
5. Television
6. Theater

Community Blogging

Below are the three types of blogging communities:-

Single blog/Blogger Centric Community- Community that occurs around the primary blogger

Central Connecting Topic Community- Community that develops from common passion and interest

Boundaried Community- Community that gathers by registered members of a specific organization

Blogs as a current phenomenon & benefits to the community

Current Phenomenon

Based on Technorati.com (2008), they are currently tracking 112.8 millions of blog all around the world. According to Technorati data, just only blogs has exceeded over 175,000 new blogs every single day. Everyday 1.6 million posts or over 18 update a second by the bloggers who update their blogs regularly.

Today in Malaysia, it becomes a trend to the Malaysian of using the blog as a way to express their opinion and feeling towards the country and also a medium for the political party to get the public attention. In Malaysia, Political blogs are scatter everywhere. Here is some of the famous political blogs in Malaysia:-

1. Lim Kit Siang
2. The Scribe A Kadir Jasin
3. Screenshots
4. Rocky’s Bru
5. Anwar Ibrahim
6. Aisehman.org
7. RantingbyMM
8. Susan Loone

(Fig .1 some of the politicians blog)

As it was proven by the social sciences and social behaviour, that women are far better communicators than men. Surveys show that the blogosphere in Malaysia blogging community, 64% bloggers are to be women while men stand 36%. The majority of bloggers in Malaysia are below 25 years old and the rest are between 25 to 34 years old.

(Microsoft.com, 2006)

Another survey had done by (PRNewswire, 2006), it review that Asia’s blogosphere rising and falling as 46% of the online user are actively blogging. In Asia, Young people and women rule the blogging world except in India: as it is significantly belong to the male and whereby blogging become a part of daily life for the Korean.

(PRNewswire, 2006)

The society in European country, still doubt the usage of blog. For example, Britain has the lowest blog user as survey show that 30% of internet users do not what is blog and most sad is only 10% of the users would actually visit blogs account (Brook, 2006). In Britain, Majority trusted the quality national newspaper follow by news aggregator such as Yahoo and Google. Only 5 % trust the newspaper or individual blog.

(Brook, 2006)

Today blog have created a new era to the world and bringing beneficial to the public. Since the emergence of politician blogs in Malaysia, the people of Malaysia can easily express their feeling and through the politician blog, they could know what the Malaysia Government are doing behind the public, which we hardly seen or heard from the mainstream media as they control the whole media in Malaysia.

Other than that, blogs helps the people to keep up with their friends and family and for other blogs such as business and technological blogs, it help the Malaysian side by side with the latest technology or business update to increase the economic and technology in Malaysia. Artist and actress also use the benefit of blog for their own beneficial for doing free advertisement through blog to promote their latest product.

(Microsot, 2006)

Reference

About us 2008, Technorati.com, viewed 12 November 2008,

<http://technoratimedia.com/about/>

Microsoft.com 2008, Women Rule in Malaysian Blogosphere, viewed 12 November 2008,

<http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/press/archive2006/linkpage4337.mspx>

PRNewswire.com 2006,Blogging Phenomenon Sweep Asia, viewed 12 November 2008,

<http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-28-2006/0004480819&EDATE=>

Brook, S 2006, Blogs struggle to impress in UK, Guardian, viewed 12 November 2008

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/20/pressandpublishing.newmedia>

Introduction

This is the first time ever in my life to start a blog. As the technology keep improving, I found out that blog has play an important role in the society of every country.

• Purpose of the Blog

This blog is created to provide in-depth discussion and review on Blog itself. It is to show how the blog itself has brought benefits to the society of the world, its current phenomenon and it classification of blogs. I will also review on the new form of media publishing and print design against web design in media world today.

• Audience

First of all, communication students would be my primary audience as Issue in Publication and Design a part of their subject. Therefore they had to know at least a bit of the blog itself and it also targeted to the professional out there.

• Additional information

Recently the election in the State, Barack Obama had won the election. One of the reasons he
won the election was using the new medium “Internet”,

"Mr.Obama’s campaign took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. Mr. Trippi argued that those videos were more effective than television ads because viewers chose to watch them or received them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted.”

(New York Times, 2008)

The reason why I choose the blog as a platform for the discussion, it is because the internet, or the World Wide Web offers a ‘complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic or sound elements …’ (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006, p.17).

Reference

-Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London.

-Miller clair.C, 2008,New York Times,“How Obama Internet Campaign Changed Politics”, viewed 11 November 2008,

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/?scp=2&sq=obama%20using%20internet%20to%20win%20election&st=cse